BCWP 2017: Does He Care What The Other Eyeballs Think?

I can’t believe it’s a whole year since I blogged for BCWP Season 2, but apparently it is! When, as a family, you have two boys to entertain and two businesses to run, time doesn’t so much fly as travel at warp speed.

I had two ideas about what to create for BCWP and being both indecisive and a terminal overachiever, I did them both. This post is all about Jack’s outfit and some general musings about society, and you can read about Charlie’s outfit here, as well as find a tutorial for how to create the perfect Valentine’s sweatshirt.

So, boys can wear pink. Of course they can. If you’re not sure about that then I recommend heading back to the 1950s as you will probably be more comfortable there. But, as I discussed in my blog for season 2, boys can also wear blue. And green. And purple. And… well you get the idea. Rainbows for all! I use pink (and every other colour) when sewing for the boys all the time. Here’s a pair of joggers I sewed up for Charlie just last week, and it didn’t even cross my mind at the time that there was pink in the pattern. All I saw was awesome fabric.

So, when choosing something to sew for Jack for BCWP I wanted something he would actually love, as merely including pink in an outfit is nothing special. Now Jack adores flamingos (or, as he sometimes calls them, mafingos). However, the reason he likes them so much is a little odd. He loves this TV advert for Chambord.

(Now before I get anxious readers contacting social services, Jack doesn’t actually drink Chambord, he doesn’t even know what it is, he just likes standing on one leg and saying BOF!).

However, once you get past the general weirdness of the ad, I actually think it’s pretty awesome.

“why does she stand on one leg? There is no reason. She likes it. She does it.”

Jack is generally a confident little dude, but since starting school in September he has seemed more concerned about what other people think. I feel this is pretty normal; most of us want to fit in in new social situations. But he has started to come out with the odd comment I wouldn’t expect him to say. When discussing Boys Can Wear Pink with my husband, Jack overheard and said “Boys can’t wear pink!” When I asked him why, he couldn’t answer, and when I said perhaps I shouldn’t make him something with the flamingo fabric that had just arrived, he said quickly “flamingos are ok, I still want the flamingos.” So I don’t believe the original comment was really from him, but nevertheless, the idea has still been planted from somewhere. Without getting too deep or political, I strongly believe that it’s more important than ever that we raise tolerant, loving and confident children. I want my boys to grow up knowing it’s ok to be different, whether they’re the different ones, or they see others that are different. But they also need to know that not everyone is instantly accepting of difference, and that they mustn’t let a small proportion of small-minded people bother them. I want them to be confident enough to let negative comments just wash over them, and to build others up to be the same.

Postscript
I’m very happy to report that Jack adores his flamingo outfit and has received heaps of compliments about it. I used the MBJM Explorer Raglan T-Shirt which you can find here, and the MBJM High Kick Joggers, the pattern for which is due to be released in about a week. If you love the flamingos, then watch this space…

This post is part of the Boys Can Wear Pink Blog Series created by Handmade Boy. The series is sponsored by a whole host of wonderful businesses and everyday this week you could win an awesome prize bundle. For more information click on the BCWP logo.

10 Comments

coffeebeankat
on February 6, 2017 at 8:40 am

Fantastic, where is the flamingo fabric from, would love to make my boy some of these.

I love this post. I felt the same when my son started school a couple of years ago – the things he said were not his own ideas but that of his peers. It still continues “girls don’t have shot hair, boys can’t have long hair” for example. I try my best to teach him to break these gendetails stereotype’s and can only hope he is absorbing it all.

The flamingo fabric is so cool! I try to teach my kids that if they like something and it makes them happy, then not to care what other people say or think. True friends will love you for you. My oldest is 13 and he still has pink shirts he wears because he likes them. He had his hair long for a long time and a few boys in the neighborhood ended up growing out theirs too because they thought it was so cool! Same goes with my girls. My Zoe loves her hair short and adores playing in the dirt. Dirt and length of hair follows the same rules as colors in our house. They aren’t strapped to a certain gender. <3